Beyond the widely held view that British English and American English are one and the same language with a small number of variations in vocabulary, the differences in the dialects are deeper. As Bernard Shaw said, “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” British English (BrE) and American English (AmE) carry a number of grammatical, idiomatical and syntaxical differences. In order to understand Shaw’s quote, one needs to look at some of the underlying factors that led to the separation of the two. American English has become its own dialect as a result of the simplification of the language followed by hundreds of years of an increasing divide.

English was first introduced to the American continent in the late 16th century. Many early settlers from the British Isles were religious dissidents and convicts who had little, if any, education. In the following centuries, people from all over Europe, many non-Anglophones, contributed to the growing American melting pot. This immigration, coupled with the lack of a centralized government regulating an education system comparable to the one existing in Britain, created the basis for AmE to diverge from BrE. These factors led the new Americans to simplify the English language in its oral, and eventually written, forms.

This can still be seen today in many American words which are spelled phonetically while British ones retain more of the original Saxon, Latin or Greek spellings (e.g. encyclopedia vs. encyclopaedia). The phonetic simplification of spelling is also obvious in the more common vocabulary. For example, many -our endings in BrE are replaced by –or in AmE. Similarly, an ‘s’ pronounced [z] in BrE is commonly substituted with ‘z’ in AmE (e.g. organization vs. organisation).

American grammar has followed the same simplifying trend. As a result, AmE uses more regular conjugation endings, particularly with past participles. For example, while the British use the irregular past participles ‘learnt’ or ‘dreamt,’ Americans are more likely to say ‘learned’ or ‘dreamed.’ Similarly, British use the present perfect tense more while Americans tend to replace it with the simple past (e.g. “I already did that.” vs. “I have already done that.”). Furthermore, Americans simplified the use of verbal auxiliaries. Although the use of ‘shall’ and ‘shan’t’ is extremely rare in AmE where they have been replaced by ‘will’ and ‘won’t,’ the two are still commonly used in BrE.

After the cut down of original English grammar, BrE and AmE had centuries to diverge into two dialects. Obviously, a main illustration of this is the differences in vocabulary and slang. Vocabulary was more or less the same between AmE and BrE until the industrial revolutions of the late 19th century. From this time, inventions were often given different names such as truck and lorry, elevator and lift, or trunk and boot. Slang in the two countries also evolved separately, including the use of the words ‘TV’ or ‘telly’ for television.

• Moncur, Michael. QuotationsPage.com; 1994-2007;
• Embassy of USA. 1/24/2005;
• Smith, Jeremy. Peak.org; 9/62006;
• Burden, Peter.
• British Council. 2000.
• Writers on the Net. 2005.
• ESLDepot.com. 2006.
• Wikipedia.org. 3/19/2007.
• BBC News. Cable Broadband Just Got Faster. 4/26/2004.

The lack of fast and easy means of communication before the digital age only supported the growing separation between the two continents.

The usage prepositions differ greatly between AmE with no apparent guiding rule. A British cat may be on heat while an American one may be in heat. This can also be seen when looking at transitivity in verbs. Many intransitive verbs in BrE are transitive in AmE and vice versa. The verb “to protest” is transitive in AmE, yet intransitive in BrE requiring the preposition ‘against.’ Also, many verbs that are intransitive in both dialects are paired with different prepositions. For example, a Briton is more likely to play in a sports team while an American would play on one. This again confirms that American English is a dialect that evolved independently from its mother language.

Clearly, the different historical processes Britain and America experienced led first, to a simplification of AmE compared to BrE and then to the two dialects evolving separately in their parts of the world. However, with the recent telecommunications revolution and the advent of American cultural dominance and influence, Britons are, more and more, tending to adopt American idioms and vocabulary. This is most evident in British advertising with their use of simple, direct slogans such as “Cable broadband just got faster.” as opposed to using a more traditional “Cable broadband has gotten quicker.” This is also true of other English-speaking areas of the world with their own dialects such as Australia, South Africa or Canada. After centuries of diverting paths, the English language is now becoming more uniform.

Erin Rae Peterson